ABRACADABRA
Chinese traffic jam: 100 kms long, 10 days old!
Beijing: Does your blood boil when you get caught in a traffic snarl? If so, then spare a thought for motorists in China who have been stuck for the past 10 days in a traffic jam stretches a good 100 km on a highway.
Trucks bound for the Chinese capital are barely moving on the Beijing – Tibet Expressway, formerly known as the Badaling Expressway, due to ongoing maintenance construction work.
Traffic authorities are struggling to cope with congestion on the major national expressway on which traffic has slowed to a snail’s pace, ‘Global Times’ reported.
Local residents are profiting due to the massive traffic jam by overcharging drivers for food. Since Aug 14, thousands of Beijing-bound trucks have choked the expressway.
Now traffic stretches for over 100 km between Beijing and Huai’an in Heibel Province and Jining in inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, ‘China National Radio’ (CNR) reported.
Minor traffic accidents and broken-down cars have aggravated the jam.
“Insufficient traffic capacity on the National Expressway 110 caused by maintaining construction is the major cause of the congestion,” a publicity officer with the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau told the ‘Global Times’.
The National Expressway 110 is available to trucks with a carrying capacity of eight tonnes and more. The road had suffered serious damage due to the great volume of heavy trucks.
This month there have been more trucks carrying excessive coal or fruit, but the Beijing section of the Beijing-Tibet Expressway is available only to trucks with a weight of less than four tonnes.
Traffic congestion and road safety have become major concerns for Chinese motorists. Some kill time by playing cards, while some wait patiently. In the latest bout o congestion on the Huai’an section, a truck driver surnamed Haung, told the newspaper that he suffered “double blows”.
He said, “Instant noodles are sold at four times the original price while I wait in the congestion. Not only the congestion annoys me, but also those vendors,” he joked.
Wang, driving from Hohhot to Tianjin in a coal truck, had been on the Huai’an section for three days and two nights.
“We are advised to take detours, but I would rather stay here since I will travel more distance and increase my costs,” said Wang.
The Beijing-Tibet Expressway and Highway 110 are two of the major routes leading to Beijing. The huge traffic jam has failed to dampen spirits with some people joking that “concerts should be held at each congested area every weekend, to alleviate drivers ‘homesickness.
About 400 traffic police officers are on duty to maintain order and to prevent further accidents. Some critics attribute the worsening congestion to poor road planning and lack of proper implementation of regulations.
Mortuary as bed room
Thrissur: A tippler who downed one too many had a sound sleep in a hospital mortuary here on Onam night, frightening women staff who saw him rising from the inquest table when they came to fetch a stretcher to move in a cadaver. The incident occurred at the government Medical College hospital at Mulankunnathkavu near here.
The man, who found a cosy bedroom in the mortuary, was handed over to police, who let him off after registering a case for trespassing, police said. The middle-aged man, an employee of a private firm in Mallapuram district, got down at the railway station here inebriated. When he got into an autorikshaw, he came to know it was not his destination. But he struck an instant bond with the auto driver and they downed another bottle.
Skydiver solves Rubik’s Cube mid-air
London: A German skydiver solved Rubik’s cube mid-air while sitting in a free-falling rubber dinghy as it plunged to earth. Ludwig Fichte jumped off form a height of 14,000 feet. The 29-year-old was filmed completing the puzzle in 31.5 seconds. Thereafter, he deployed his parachute. The Sun quoted Ludwig, of Dresden, Germany, as saying: “Solving the cube in freefall has been done before, but I’m the first to do it in a rubber boat.”
Teacher asks students to plan a terror attack in OZ
Melbourne: A high school teacher in Australia created ripples when she assigned her class to plan a terrorist attack using chemical or biological warfare.
The year 10 students at Kalgoorlie-Boulder Community High School in Western Australia were set a task by their environment teacher to pretend they were terrorists planning to make a political statement by releasing a chemical or biological agent on “an unsuspecting Australian community.”
"Your goal is to kill the MOST innocent civilians to get your message across,” she told the students in a written assignment form. The West Australian newspaper reported.
Students were told that as terrorists they could choose the best time to attack and decide where to release their weapons and what effects it would have on the human body.
And they were told marks would be allocated on their ability to analyse information they had learnt on terrorism and apply it to real life scenario. Most of the students were “horrified” at the exercise they had been given and refused to hand in their assignments. As the word spread, Principal of the school Terry Martino intervened to get the assignment withdrawn. “The teacher is relatively inexperienced, made a well-intentioned but misguided attempt to engage the students in an assignment on contemporary conflict.” Martino said in comments forwarded to the State Education Department.
The Principal said he felt that she was not promoting terrorism, but had just made a mistake. “She understood the topic was inappropriate. She is remorseful,” the Principal said, defending the teacher.
The incident created a furore countrywide, but the school declined to identify the teacher, citing her privacy. The newspaper said that they too were not given the name.
But the shackles are up in the State Education Department which has asked the school for a full report. Parents of the students are up in arms against their wards being assigned such violent tasks and a number of them, the paper said, have written protest letters to the Department.
The incident also evoked revulsion worldwide, with bloggers all over Australia, US and UK protesting that whether students in civilised societies should be taught terrorism and violence.
Beijing: Does your blood boil when you get caught in a traffic snarl? If so, then spare a thought for motorists in China who have been stuck for the past 10 days in a traffic jam stretches a good 100 km on a highway.
Trucks bound for the Chinese capital are barely moving on the Beijing – Tibet Expressway, formerly known as the Badaling Expressway, due to ongoing maintenance construction work.
Traffic authorities are struggling to cope with congestion on the major national expressway on which traffic has slowed to a snail’s pace, ‘Global Times’ reported.
Local residents are profiting due to the massive traffic jam by overcharging drivers for food. Since Aug 14, thousands of Beijing-bound trucks have choked the expressway.
Now traffic stretches for over 100 km between Beijing and Huai’an in Heibel Province and Jining in inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, ‘China National Radio’ (CNR) reported.
Minor traffic accidents and broken-down cars have aggravated the jam.
“Insufficient traffic capacity on the National Expressway 110 caused by maintaining construction is the major cause of the congestion,” a publicity officer with the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau told the ‘Global Times’.
The National Expressway 110 is available to trucks with a carrying capacity of eight tonnes and more. The road had suffered serious damage due to the great volume of heavy trucks.
This month there have been more trucks carrying excessive coal or fruit, but the Beijing section of the Beijing-Tibet Expressway is available only to trucks with a weight of less than four tonnes.
Traffic congestion and road safety have become major concerns for Chinese motorists. Some kill time by playing cards, while some wait patiently. In the latest bout o congestion on the Huai’an section, a truck driver surnamed Haung, told the newspaper that he suffered “double blows”.
He said, “Instant noodles are sold at four times the original price while I wait in the congestion. Not only the congestion annoys me, but also those vendors,” he joked.
Wang, driving from Hohhot to Tianjin in a coal truck, had been on the Huai’an section for three days and two nights.
“We are advised to take detours, but I would rather stay here since I will travel more distance and increase my costs,” said Wang.
The Beijing-Tibet Expressway and Highway 110 are two of the major routes leading to Beijing. The huge traffic jam has failed to dampen spirits with some people joking that “concerts should be held at each congested area every weekend, to alleviate drivers ‘homesickness.
About 400 traffic police officers are on duty to maintain order and to prevent further accidents. Some critics attribute the worsening congestion to poor road planning and lack of proper implementation of regulations.
Mortuary as bed room
Thrissur: A tippler who downed one too many had a sound sleep in a hospital mortuary here on Onam night, frightening women staff who saw him rising from the inquest table when they came to fetch a stretcher to move in a cadaver. The incident occurred at the government Medical College hospital at Mulankunnathkavu near here.
The man, who found a cosy bedroom in the mortuary, was handed over to police, who let him off after registering a case for trespassing, police said. The middle-aged man, an employee of a private firm in Mallapuram district, got down at the railway station here inebriated. When he got into an autorikshaw, he came to know it was not his destination. But he struck an instant bond with the auto driver and they downed another bottle.
Skydiver solves Rubik’s Cube mid-air
London: A German skydiver solved Rubik’s cube mid-air while sitting in a free-falling rubber dinghy as it plunged to earth. Ludwig Fichte jumped off form a height of 14,000 feet. The 29-year-old was filmed completing the puzzle in 31.5 seconds. Thereafter, he deployed his parachute. The Sun quoted Ludwig, of Dresden, Germany, as saying: “Solving the cube in freefall has been done before, but I’m the first to do it in a rubber boat.”
Teacher asks students to plan a terror attack in OZ
Melbourne: A high school teacher in Australia created ripples when she assigned her class to plan a terrorist attack using chemical or biological warfare.
The year 10 students at Kalgoorlie-Boulder Community High School in Western Australia were set a task by their environment teacher to pretend they were terrorists planning to make a political statement by releasing a chemical or biological agent on “an unsuspecting Australian community.”
"Your goal is to kill the MOST innocent civilians to get your message across,” she told the students in a written assignment form. The West Australian newspaper reported.
Students were told that as terrorists they could choose the best time to attack and decide where to release their weapons and what effects it would have on the human body.
And they were told marks would be allocated on their ability to analyse information they had learnt on terrorism and apply it to real life scenario. Most of the students were “horrified” at the exercise they had been given and refused to hand in their assignments. As the word spread, Principal of the school Terry Martino intervened to get the assignment withdrawn. “The teacher is relatively inexperienced, made a well-intentioned but misguided attempt to engage the students in an assignment on contemporary conflict.” Martino said in comments forwarded to the State Education Department.
The Principal said he felt that she was not promoting terrorism, but had just made a mistake. “She understood the topic was inappropriate. She is remorseful,” the Principal said, defending the teacher.
The incident created a furore countrywide, but the school declined to identify the teacher, citing her privacy. The newspaper said that they too were not given the name.
But the shackles are up in the State Education Department which has asked the school for a full report. Parents of the students are up in arms against their wards being assigned such violent tasks and a number of them, the paper said, have written protest letters to the Department.
The incident also evoked revulsion worldwide, with bloggers all over Australia, US and UK protesting that whether students in civilised societies should be taught terrorism and violence.
Comments